Action!

My picks for this issue tend to fall into the action game category. We have two vertically scrolling shoot-em-up games (Sky Force and Foo Fighter), a combat flight simulator (Hellfire), and even a fight game (Kung Fu '72). It's refreshing to see more action games after all the strategy and adventure games released so far this year, some of which tend to be a little too complex for the Pocket PC.

Sky Force (A)

Sky Force is a terrific new shoot ‘em up game from Netherlands-based InfiniteDreams. The game is very straightforward: select your skill level (which controls the aggressiveness of your opponents and how many targets you'll need to wipe out to progress to the next level), select your ship, and you're off to fight through seven graphically-rich levels.

Sky Force has some neat graphic effects like particles, shadows, and transparent explosions, but the neatest thing about the game is its emphasis on both ground and air targets. Aside from the usual airplanes and boats, SF has plenty of tanks, buildings, towers, and even humans the player can rescue. Included are seven large levels with multiple stages, all of which do a great job of recreating the type of game you usually find only on consoles and arcade machines.

For more information on this game, visit the Clickgamer Web site (http://www.clickgamer.com/moreinfo.htm?pid=841). Sky Force supports Pocket 2002 and newer devices. A demo is available, and the full version can be purchased for $9.95.

Sky Force, a straightforward shoot ‘em up, looks and plays like a winner.

Foo Fighter (A-)

Foo Fighter is similar to Sky Force and consists of fifteen levels spread across five different planets. FF has a little more sophistication in its level progression than Sky Force does. The missions have detailed briefings, and the player hops from planet to planet, performing a series of missions on each. Your progress is automatically saved.

Although Foo Fighter has multiple layers of scrolling graphics and looks very good, it doesn't have quite the graphical sophistication of Sky Force and has fewer overall targets. Foo Fighter does have a neat feature where the path branches either to the left or right, and the player is able to choose which way to go. Enemies are few in number but tough—sometimes they'll resort to nasty tricks like disguising themselves as power-ups. The game also offers an instant-action mode, which is a nice change of pace from having to play the game through every time. The default difficulty settings are rather challenging, but turning them down helps out quite a bit.

For more information on this game, visit the Elements Interactive Web site (http://games.elements.nl/foofighter/). Foo Fighter supports Windows Mobile 2003 and newer devices. A demo is available, and the full version can be purchased for $14.95. This title is also available for Smartphones.

Foo Fighter's game play is intense and demanding.

Game box Solitaire 2 (A-)

PDAMill's original Gamebox Solitaire didn't beat King Sol in terms of overall features, but, like most PDAMill games, it had a quality of presentation that made it one of the better games in its category.